Crete

Last night I went to a Cretan festival with my friends Elyse and Katherine. There was a party going on here in Panepistimiou but I decided that it'd be a better cultural experience to go to an all-Greek festival instead of a party thrown for Americans in an attempt to learn about the culture without actually going out into it. It just seemed like sort of a dumb idea to me to throw a super loud party in this residential area where I'm pretty sure our neighbors hate us already. But that's not the point.

So this Cretan festival. First, it was something we had to dress up for, which was strange, but it didn't matter I guess except I had to change from the going out clothes I had put on. As we're headed over there Elyse, who is a Greek-American, was like "Oh I need to warn you. Cretans, you know people from Crete (and I was like well duh I know what Cretan means, Elyse) love guns. Like there will be guns here, and they'll probably have knives on them as well. Don't be surprised." I of course am just like "uh, okay." I mean, I went to Auburn, my first reaction to gun fire is to want to hit the ground, so I'm glad she warned me.

So we get there and the thing was supposed to start at 9. It is 9:15 and everyone is standing outside grouped around the door and we start to push our way in because we found Elyse's cousin and this crowd is insanely tight in this entryway to this university student union building. Like we got stuck in the crowd of people for about 45 minutes and I am freaking out in it because I get a little claustrophobic in crowds and of course no one is speaking English. I'm pretty sure I rounded a few bases with about 6 different people just because of the lack of personal space this crowd was creating. At one point I was like "screw this, I'm peacing out," and looked behind me and realized that I couldn't even get out of this crowd if I wanted to so I just started pushing my way in because we all got separated.

So finally I got in and paid my 12 euro for a ticket and found Elyse and Katherine and the boy we'd met there (Elyse's cousin and her friend had gone upstairs to try to get us a table) and Elyse can see it in my eyes that I was like dying out there and of course starts trying to calm me down but it sort of laughing at me at the same time. But it's whatever, I was fine when I felt like I could breathe without inhaling smoke and people's perfume/cologne or lack of it. We headed upstairs and my no smoke filled lungs immediately filled with smoke again because they don't really believe in the law that says you can't smoke indoors that Thessaloniki just passed a few months ago. Elyse's cousin, Nasia (if I remember her name correctly) and her friend Yota (yes, Yota) found us a table all the way in the back corner which in reality was like the most inconvenient spot ever but it was fine. So for the first like half an hour, Katherine and I are sitting there wondering what the hell did we come here for because we don't speak Greek at all and Katherine doesn't even drink and I don't like the wine we got with our ticket but we obviously are going to try to make the best of it.

Eventually the band starts singing. Now, I don't really know that I'm that big of a fan of Greek music, just because I'm a terrible person and don't really dig ethnic music that much and it all sort of sounds a little polka-ish to me. I mean, I don't hate it, and sometimes I actually do like it. Last night was one of those times, simply because I was supposed to be taking it in as a cultural experience. So the band sings a few songs and then it is time for the dancers. There was a troupe of costumed dancers that had been sort of just milling around until it was their time to perform so we saw the costumes beforehand but it was still cool to see them all lined up and everything. We left our table and headed toward the dance floor so we could see better.

The dancing is sort of like tap dancing and Irish dancing mixed together and made smaller. Like there is a lot of footwork but it is pretty confined and really intricate actually (not going to lie though, a few minutes in I was thinking "Give me a week and I could do this"). That is, until the men start jumping around doing turns and slapping their feet in some cotton-eye-joe like manner. It was actually really cool to see, especially in the traditional costumes. The men had these blue, slightly military looking jackets on with gold and maroon-red details and gaucho like pants and boots. They had this ivory decorative sort of thing that looked like a giant hairclip (it obviously wasn't) in the front where a hoodie pocket would be. The women had on skirts, mostly the same maroon-red color the men had as details (or they were white with that color on as an apron, the details escape me already unfortunately), but one woman's was this silk light blue and green one that was beautiful. They had on white blouses with some detailing and gold necklaces that looked like they were full of coins and they wore maroon headscarves. I was amazed they weren't all just absolutely pouring sweat dancing in those costumes.

While the dancing was going on the guns started going off. And I don't mean one shot here and there, I mean like it sounded like we were in the middle of 'Nam or some shit. I'm pretty sure one guy had an AK-47. There were shots constantly going off. And everyone was clapping and whistling and getting into it so much. It was pretty awesome. And deafening.

But after the dancing we headed back to our table where one of Nasia's friends and her boyfriend were still and her boyfriend was getting steadily more drunk and decided to talk to us because Katherine and I are American and don't speak Greek so he was talking to us in English a little bit. He passed by me when he was on his way to get another bottle of wine and asks "Do you have a gun?" I just started laughing like "No, I do not have a damn gun. Why would I have a gun." And he goes "You should get one" like it's the most obvious thing in the world. I was just cracking up. But so for the rest of the time he's like "I will learn you Greek tonight. Right now. Bet me" and Katherine and I are cracking up and both telling him "Mathaino sto ACT, sto Anatolia" (I learn at ACT, at Anatolia) and he's just like "No, Anatolia is not real Ellenika. I learn you real Greek." And he eventually tells us that we're crazy. And that was pretty much our interaction with him before we left.

I've come to the conclusion that Greeks are actually generally really helpful to foreigners who seem to be trying to learn their culture. The guys at the table next to us were informed that Katherine and I don't speak Greek early in the night and the one guy leaned over and told Katherine in broken English that one of them men at the table behind us was going to fire his gun soon so we should be prepared. He also picked up some of the blanks that the man had shot off and gave them to Katherine and me. He also poured little shots of Raki (a 180 proof drink common in the Balkans that tastes like ouzo and tequila mixed and it's effing disgusting! Like it's terrible; the one time I tasted it I almost choked because the bar we were at put an ice cube in the cup of it and I didn't notice and swallowed the ice cube and here's a secret: that hurts!!!) for most of our table and cheers'ed with us. Greeks love love love toasting to things. I'm like 90% sure that the man who was going to "learn" Katherine and me Greek had us do a toast to "Chihuahua" at one point. The guy at the other table later then asked Katherine if she could dance like they had (because the dance floor opened up so everyone could go dance) and when she said no proceeded to offer to teach her at a later point because he was too drunk at the moment. When she said she'd be really bad at it he told her that his friend was terrible so she couldn't be worse than him but we never got to find out because we decided to leave pretty soon after that because we were getting tired.

But all in all it was a pretty fun experience, despite the crushing crowd at the beginning and the not good wine. I got bullets and saw a bunch of good looking men and got told I was crazy in Greek. It coulda been a way worse Saturday.